Abstract [en]

In an audience study empirical examples of narrative impact is presented when specific fiction film scenes condensate spectators’ emotional lives, identities, and beliefs. The outcome of conducted in-depth interviews with film viewers in Sweden 2012, discussing favorite films, will support theories about stories as a primary mean by which we make sense of our experience through time. It calls for a development of theories which in more detail explores spectator’s narrative competence when being absorbed by fiction. It challenges theories of fiction emotions and proposes a more complex analysis of the passionate viewer. A conclusion is that narrative impact is partly related to fiction emotions but most importantly when spectators are testing the narrative for a larger significance beyond the media, connecting diegetical fiction experiences with spectator’s profound aspirations in life and experienced conflicts of human existence in extra-diegetical world.